Brothers Pay Tribute To Adderleys

October 17, 2002|By Matt Schudel Arts Writer

They were two brothers with one music. For more than 15 years, as they toured the world with their tasty home-cooked style of jazz, the Adderley brothers led one of the most popular instrumental groups of their time.

Before they exported such joyous, foot-patting hit tunes as Work Song, This Here and Sack o' Woe, the Adderleys already had deep roots here in the sandy soil of Florida. They were born in Tampa and grew up in Tallahassee. For several years in the 1950s, the affable older brother, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, taught music at Fort Lauderdale's Dillard High School. Before he died in of a stroke in 1975 at age 46, Cannonball was recognized as a jazz genius, a master of the alto saxophone. His younger brother, Nat, who played cornet and wrote many of their songs, lived in central Florida until his death in January 2000.

As well-known as the brothers were in their day, they are now almost a lost episode of Florida's cultural history. But this week another pair of musical brothers will bring the Adderleys' music -- and their buoyant spirit -- back to life. Saxophonist Jesse Jones Jr. and his younger brother, trumpeter Melton Mustafa, will lead a quintet Friday at the Broward Center in a concert presented by the Gold Coast Jazz Society. Their tribute performance returns them to some of their earliest musical memories, when they were growing up as the Jones brothers in Miami's Liberty City.

"When I was in the sixth grade," Jesse Jones recalls, "I used to hear my neighbor playing this album all the time. I finally got the nerve to ask what it was. It was Cannonball. Right then, I knew that's what I wanted to do."

Jones and Mustafa have been major players on South Florida's jazz scene for years, and each has built an international following. Jones just got back from a week in Russia, where he shared the stage with well-known jazz artists Richie Cole and Randy Brecker. Mustafa, a veteran of the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras, has worked in groups led by saxophonist Bobby Watson and bassist Jaco Pastorius and has an entry in the authoritative Encyclopedia of Jazz.

"We've had people come up and say, `Man, you should be on top,'" Jones says.

"We could have stepped on some toes to get there," adds Mustafa.

"But that wasn't the way were brought up," says Jones, finishing the thought. "We were taught to be humble."

Their mother, Verrie Jones, who still lives in the family home at age 90, played piano at home. Their sisters were in a Supremes-like singing group. Jesse mastered the alto and baritone saxophones, as well as the bassoon, by the time he finished junior high.

"When I was in the ninth grade I got my brother to play the trumpet," he says. "He wanted to play the saxophone."

"Still do!" Mustafa jokes.

"But I said no," Jones continues. "I wanted us to sound like Cannonball and Nat."

The similarities between the two sets of Florida brothers don't end there. Jesse, 58, and Melton, who turns 55 next month, are about 21/2 years apart in age, like Cannonball and Nat. In each case, the older brother is a saxophonist with an outgoing, crowd-pleasing nature; the younger, slightly more retiring brother is a trumpeter. Mustafa and the Adderley brothers graduated from Florida A&M University (Jones has a degree from Mississippi Valley State University). Both Adderleys were teachers, and Mustafa now directs the jazz program at Florida Memorial College in Miami.

All four played in military bands before embarking on their solo careers. Jones spent four years traveling the world with a 23-piece Navy band before coming back home.

"I've always been an entertainer," he says. "I love conversing with people through my horn. When you're playing and you see their heads going up and down, that means they're answering you."

After Melton completed his military service, he returned to Miami and became a Muslim, changing his last name to Mustafa. At first, he belonged to a strict sect of Islam that considered music a form of idle vanity. He didn't pick up his trumpet for nearly three years.

"What got me back to it," he says, "was my brother. He called me up and told me about this group he was in. Then came the punch line: `We need you in the band. We need a trumpet player.'"

"Let me tell you something," says Jones. "In all our life growing up together, we have never had an argument. Not one. When Melton became a Muslim, it never affected our relationship. We were brothers first. We loved each other."

In making music for more than 40 years, they have found a level of communication that goes beyond words. Sitting in their mother's dining room, they spontaneously break into fast-paced bop melodies in unison, drumming out intricate rhythms on the tabletop with their hands. Their conversation goes back and forth almost in a call-and-response pattern, just like the music of the Adderley brothers.

"We've been playing together so long," says Mustafa, "there are some little inflections we have, and we just know what they are."

"Even now," Jones adds, "it's something we don't have to talk about."

"When we play Cannonball Adderley things," Mustafa continues, "we get great joy out of the music."

"We came up with that music," says Jones. "It's a part of our history. It's a part of us."

Matt Schudel can be reached at 954-356-4689 or mschudel@sun-sentinel.com.